2011-05-13

I am a mullah

As I was walking home I came upon a gaggle of boys, around twelvish. One of them asked if I could help them. Well, sure, what’s the matter? Isn’t this a Thor’s hammer? So it seems. Wouldn’t it be haraam for a Moslem to wear it? Aaah, ha ha, you’ll have to ask your imam about that.

I eventually figured out that one of the younger boys in his innocence had gotten himself the pendant and just been challenged by the more theologically astute boy who first had addressed me. He proposed it would be humiliating to be wearing the symbol of another god. I suggested it was just an ornament, to be worn for æsthetic reasons, but by now the boys had reached the decision they should get rid of the heathen symbol. They offered me to buy it for cheap, but I declined on the grounds that I never wear jewellery. Another reason is that all too many wearers of Thor’s hammers tend to be of the nationalist persuasion, so I, too, had symbolic reasons not to wear it.